Tributes pour in for well-loved Wath woman Amy Usher

But today tributes are being paid to 22-year-old Amy Usher after the young woman from Wath lost her two-year battle with the illness.

Amy, of Willow Road, died on Thursday at Weston Park Hospital, Sheffield, surrounded by her family.

The former forensic psychology student had been receiving treatment at the hospital since she was diagnosed with an incurable form of throat cancer in February 2013.

Last month she received the news that numerous courses of chemotherapy had failed to stop the spread of the disease and her treatment was stopped.

Amy, was a huge fan of ice hockey team the Sheffield Steelers, and won many friends at the club through her courage in fighting her illness.

She told the Times how she felt about her treatment ending last month. She said: “While ever you are having treatment, you think that something is happening, but when it stops it is scary.

“But there is no more of the sickness and I can be more of myself and as a family we can plan to do more things and just make the most of the time we have now.”

But she said the support she had received from fellow ice hockey fans was a comfort to her, adding: “It is overwhelming because it does make me feel that I am not on my own. It is not so scary because people are with me.”

Friend and Steelers’ official David Simms said: “She came once and then she started coming every week. We gave her own T-shirt. Sometimes she travelled on the team bus with us and she would go in to the dressing rooms to talk to the players.

“Amy and her sister Beth were guests of the club at the play off finals at the NIC in Nottingham and all the players insisted that they were involved in the team celebrations after our success.

“The girls joined the boys on the ice and helped them to lift the trophy.

“When she first started coming we’d been losing, and then all of a sudden we started winning. She was our lucky omen.

“In the 24 years that I have been working for the club, nobody has touched us in the way that she has and I don’t think anybody ever will.

“She will be sadly missed.

“We are a better team, and better people, for having had 14 months with her.

He added that Amy was a brave young woman who touched the lives of everyone she met.

“Amy was so good to be around, you wanted to be with her.

“She was so selfless, it made you humble.

“She always used to ask how you were, despite what she was going through.

“She affected everyone she met because of her life and her personality.”

Before Amy’s death, David had arranged to walk almost 90 miles from his home just outside Birmingham to Sheffield with two other well known behind the Scenes Steeler men, Neil Edwards and Elliott Hall, to raise money for the hospital.

David said: “We are not clever enough to cure cancer, but we wanted to do something significant to raise as much money as possible to help the people who are clever enough.

“Our feet are sore now, but they will fine in a week. We wanted to do something to help people with problems that can’t be cured in a week.”

When Amy died, David, and his friends were around 12 miles in to the walk.

David, who helped establish the Steelers’ in 1991, said: “She will leave a legacy that will be with us forever.

“We’re not sure what we’re going to do yet, but we will do something as a team. Whether that be putting her name in the ice or printing her name on her T-shirts, she will be permanently with us.

“We are also looking at making Weston Park our official club charity.”

Coach Gerad Adams said the club’s recent league title victory was a tribute to her.

Go to https://www.justgiving.com/Simmsey-and-Friends to donate to the appeal.